Listening to Chopin while fighting Nazis

A Journey into my Family’s WWII Polish Past

"A deeply revealing, intimate account of a family’s Polish history. As a six-year-old boy, Charns came across a book named ‘I Survived Hitler’s Hell’ by A.P. Gwiazdowski and became curious about his family’s Polish history. As he grows older, he begins to wonder about his family’s claim about risking their lives for their Jewish neighbors in Suwalki, Poland, during WWII and his maternal grandfather Alexander Peter Gwiazdowski’s antisemitic views. Charns took on himself to unravel the truth, throwing himself into meticulous research, which included reading Polish history, interviewing survivors, Internet searches, requesting files under the Freedom of Information Act, and reading FBI memos on his deceased relatives. Soon, it becomes apparent that this story of a family’s role in saving the lives of their neighbors in a small Polish town was not only true but also served as a small-scale version for a considerable chunk of population—rescue efforts ranging from the isolated actions of individuals to organized networks both small and large. Charns details his family’s part in the political resistance to Nazi rule ..." Prairies Book Review.